HOUSING: Autumn heats up as buyers flock to market

Someone blew the dog whistle that only home buyers can hear: Almost as a body, prospective buyers have rushed into the North San Diego and Southwest Riverside county housing markets, extending the summer buying season into the normally sleepy autumn, real estate agents said.

Mortgage interest rates around 4 percent and relatively low house prices have tempted some buyers for the last two years, but many resisted on the belief that prices would fall yet lower. But this year, many potential buyers decided the prices had hit bottom and that the time had come to buy.

At the same time, many sellers ---- facing prices that are lower than their mortgage balances ---- have kept their homes unlisted, creating a shortage in which buyers have to move fast to pick up a house they want.

"Now is a good time to buy so the money will go to my mortgage," instead of paying rent, said Garrett Renner, a petty officer first class with the Navy stationed in San Diego.

In 2006, the last time someone blew the special home-buyer whistle, a housing boom came to a sudden halt when prospective buyers decided, seemingly as a group, that prices were too high. When buying slowed, prices collapsed, precipitating a foreclosure crisis that lasted well into 2010. But since then the foreclosure rate has been falling, reducing the number of homes on the market, and house prices have stabilized ---- even climbing modestly in recent months.

Renner and other potential buyers realized this year that low house prices and mortgage interest rates below 4 percent flipped the usual housing equation on its head: Buying a house cost as much on a monthly basis as renting one.

"I think the buying community has awakened to the fact that interest rates are going to stay fairly low," said
Jerry Kalman
, a Fallbrook real estate agent. "And there's more confidence in the economy."

At the same time, prices have started to turn around. In San Bernardino and Riverside counties,
prices rose 4.3 percent
in August compared to a year earlier, according to CoreLogic. In North County, the median house price rose to
$456,000 in August
, up 5.3 percent from a year earlier, according to the North San Diego County Association of Realtors.

But even as low prices and interest rates lure buyers into the market, those same low prices are keeping potential sellers on the sidelines. Seller reluctance combined with a falling foreclosure rate pushed down listings in the region.

Fewer houses on the market and the increased pace of buying created low, low inventories. If North County buyers purchased houses at the rate they did in August, they would need 2.8 months to buy up all the houses in North County, according to the North San Diego County Association of Realtors. In Southwest Riverside County, buyers would need just 1.4 months, according to online broker Redfin.